Wisdom in Time

An opinion is widely spread nowadays that the people of the past could possess some knowledge and wisdom superior to that of today, and this supreme wisdom has become forgotten with time.

Such attitude denies development at least twice. First, cultural achievements are claimed eternal and never changing. Second, people's ability of thought and action is assumed to be the same through all the stages of human history.

However, nothing in culture can be made once and for ever. This holds for art, science and philosophy as well. One should not expect that aesthetics of one epoch will coincide with that of another, and most works of ancient and primitive art may only be of historical interest for contemporary viewer (I do not speak of fashions, which have nothing to do with spirituality). Also, most constructions of early science would look strange in the modern context. The situation with philosophy is the same. Wisdom of the past can never satisfy the demands of today. Any claims of supreme knowledge in the ancient times look ridiculous. This is especially so for wisdom, since philosophy is the level of spirituality closely related to practice, to conscious construction of the future. That is why one cannot be considered wise following any prehistoric directions, since wisdom is the ability of breaking the rules to discover new ways more appropriate in the present.

Naturally, old things may be useful today if the way of life and economy have not changed too much, so that the corresponding activities play some role in the present society. However, this mostly occurs due to slow development of society rather than exceedingly wise establishments of the past - that is, due to the lack of wisdom, rather than the excess of it.

My second point is that people's abilities develop following economical development, which leads to the widening of the collection of skills possessed by an average person, including mental skills. This wider view of the world makes the general level of spirituality much higher in contemporary people than in most people of the past. Therefore, new wisdom is bound to be more sublime and elaborate than anything previously known. Again, when modern people become fascinated by some ancient "truth", one may suspect that this just indicates a spiritual deficiency, rather than the outstanding character of this truth. For instance, the existence of numerous religions despite of all the progress made in arts, science and philosophy is the result of insufficient cultural development and poor education which cannot open the already existing spiritual wealth to anybody. Eventually, this is a result of bad economical and social organization.